Scientists are figuring out how magicians fool our brains in research that also helps uncover how our mind actually works. A great deal of what scientists now understand about how the human visual system works stems from research into our susceptibility to optical illusions."It made sense to look at magicians to advance knowledge of human cognition, since magicians have been working on figuring out how certain principles of psychology work for hundreds of years," said researcher Gustav Kuhn at the University of Durham in England, a cognitive psychologist who has also performed magic the past couple decades."Magicians really have this ability to distort your perceptions, to get people to perceive things that never happened, just like a visual illusion," he added.The researchers looked into a magic trick called the "vanishing ball," in which a ball apparently disappears in midair. It's done by faking a throw while keeping the ball secretly palmed in the magician's hand.Kuhn videotaped himself performing two versions of the illusion. In the "pro-illusion" version, on the fake throw, his gaze and head followed an imaginary ball moving upwards. In the "anti-illusion" version, Kuhn's eyes stayed on the hand concealing the ball.Roughly two-thirds of volunteers watching the pro-illusion version on television had a vivid recollection of the ball leaving the top of the screen. "Often they claimed someone at the top of the screen caught the ball," Kuhn told LiveScience. In comparison, only a third of the people viewing the anti-illusion version experienced that illusion.
Image: Magician Michael Diamond
View: Full Article | Source: Live Science